U.S. Rep Beto O'Rourke led a protest in Tornillo on Sunday, June 17, 2018, against the separation of immigrant families. Hundreds of people joined in the demonstration near a tent city housing children at Tornillo’s port of entry.
MARIA CORTES GONZALEZ/EL PASO TIMES

Border Patrol agents take a group of migrant families to a safer place to be transported after intercepting them near McAllen.(Photo11: Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times-USA TODAY NETWORK)

The morning after it was discovered that the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Western District of Texas would dismiss immigration cases involving parents, at least one man, who was separated from his 16-year-old son, had his case dismissed.

Hector Antonio Melendez-Alvarez, a 52-year-old from El Salvador, was charged with one count of illegal re-entry after a deportation. He sat handcuffed in a federal courtroom Friday alongside more than 10 other defendants in blue jail jumpsuits. But he never appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert F. Castañeda. A dismissal document had been signed dropping the case against him.

His lawyer, assistant federal public defender Shane McMahon, told Melendez-Alvarez that the charge against him was dismissed and that he would be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to be deported back to El Salvador.

Federal prosecutors didn't tell McMahon why they dropped the case, but on Thursday, Maureen Scott Franco, head of the Federal Public Defenders Office of the Western District of Texas, said an inability to house reunited immigrant families spurred the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas to dismiss immigration cases against parents who entered the country illegally.

"Earlier today (Thursday), the U.S. Attorney called me to let me know that based on the inability to house the family units together while the criminal case was proceeding, that those cases would be looked at and dismissed, if appropriate," she said.

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas officials could not be reached to comment on the dismissal of Melendez-Alvarez's case, and no court documents regarding the dismissal had been filed as of Friday.

Of the 23 cases in four courts that El Paso Times reporters monitored Friday, Melendez-Alvarez was the only defendant whose case involved a child being taken away and was the only case to be dismissed. On Thursday, Franco said, about 19 cases involving families who were separated were dismissed.

The dismissal came one day after an email, which was obtained by the El Paso Times, said that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas was going to dismiss all cases against defendants separated from their child.

The email stated that U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas John Franklin Bash said that “until or unless he is countermanded this will be the policy of the Western District of Texas.”

Franco said Thursday that the decision was made due to housing issues required by an executive order signed Wednesday by President Donald Trump that barred immigrant families from being separated.

The executive order requires that families be housed together while criminal cases are pending, and limited facilities in the El Paso and West Texas area will make it difficult for federal agencies to house the families, Franco said.